Saturday, November 30, 2002

I was just reading some text from John Hagel's, "Out of the Box". John was writing about how web services would first catch on at the edge of the enterprise. This suggestion puzzled me - actually it seemed foolish. It would seem that web services would catch on inside (at the core as he puts it) first merely because there is more control over the standards and the infrastructure.

Anyway, it got me thinking that he might be right - only because there are a number of foolish people in the world and they all have the ability to communicate. This leads to the Fool's Proposition: a foolish idea may become reality based purely on the fact that foolish people communicate, listen, believe and act. If a fool is able to deliver his message to enough other fools to create a critical mass the foolish concept has the potential to become reality. Thus, the non-fool must be careful not to predict against the fool.

The next time you're sitting in a meeting and someone throws out a dumb idea - watch carefully... watch who the person with the dumb idea will attempt to communicate with in order to build the critical mass - this is, The Fool's Network.